Crimes against United States residents and households hit a 20-year-low in 1992, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics. Rape, robbery, personal theft, household theft and larceny all are down.

For Pennsylvania, crime rates are flat or up slightly.

"It's fair to say there has been a slight increase in crime over time," said Phillip J. Renninger, director of the Bureau of Statistics and Policy Research at the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. "Violent crime is up, but not radically."

Nationwide, the number of violent crimes has increased 1.3 million over 1973, when the Justice Department began its annual survey. But the rate of violent crimes, adjusted for population growth, has changed little in that time.

Roughly 32 of every 1,000 Americans aged 12 or older were victims of violent crimes two years ago, the department found. In 1973, it was 32.6.

That's half the rate of accidental injuries at home.

But those are averages. Young, black males living in cities were dramatically more likely to be victims of crime than elderly residents in suburban areas.

The violence rate among young blacks was nearly four times the population at 113 victims per 1,000 youths. Similar rates were 18 for adult white men, 15 for adult white women, six for elderly white men and three for elderly white women.

"The paradox is this," said Mark A. Cunniff, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Justice Planners, Washington, D.C. "The older you are, the more likely you are to be fearful of crime and not experience it."

The Justice Department surveys at least 100,000 households each year, an effort second only to that of the U.S. Census.

Each year it finds two-thirds more crimes committed than those actually reported to authorities, helping to make it the leading indicator available. At least half of all violent crimes go unreported, the survey shows.

Separately, the FBI makes public each year the data it collects from police in a "uniform crime report."

By that measure, all crimes dropped 2.9 percent in 1992, but violent crimes rose 1 percent due to increases in aggravated assaults and rapes. Roughly 57 of 1,000 Americans were victims.

But criminologists caution that those numbers come from 16,000 police departments and lack consistency.

Allentown proves the point.

Statistically, violent crime seemed to shoot up during the first half of 1993 after the police department changed the way it tracks such numbers. Adjusted numbers showed a smaller increase.

The various measures "all have a little bit of truth to them," said Mark Moyer, director of The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., organization searching for alternatives to incarceration. "The question is: What's the impact?"

Perhaps the best measure of crime, Renninger said, is a personal one. Have you or someone you know recently been a victim? How does that compare with prior years?

"I won't go so far as to say the current hysteria is unfounded," Renninger said. "But the stats don't match the perception."